Thursday, May 30, 2019

When various ranking services rank colleges and universities in the USA, they appear to forget to take into account the Latin wisdom of "Mens sana in corpore sano" meaning "A healthy mind in a healthy body" viz. "A sound mind in a sound body". College athletics exist to provide students with an opportunity to make that phrase a reality in their lives. Sports are a part of their education.

Not only does Stanford University rank at or near the top of lists that judge the quality of universities and colleges around the world by a host of variables, including of course, and especially, academics, but Stanford is unique in its competitive athletic excellence -- as Stanford this year will again win the Directors' Cup as the top collegiate athletic department in the country in NCAA Division I -- for the 25th straight year -- a record surely without parallel in sports, or elsewhere, for that matter.

Stanford just won the NCAA Division I Golf Championship at Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It was this academic year's (2018-2019) 6th national athletic championship for the Cardinal and 123rd NCAA title overall, both NCAA records (Stanford also won six titles in 1996-1997, so the record was tied).

"Stanford has won 22 straight Directors' Cups as the leading college and university athletic program in the nation, judged by performance ("Points are awarded based on each institution’s finish in up to 20 sports — 10 women's and 10 men's.")Stanford also extended to 41 years the Cardinal's streak of at least one national championship per year by winning the 2016 men's soccer and women's volleyball titles. Stanford has won more team and individual titles than any other college. Talk about a culture of excellence!Stanford's athletic record over the years is all the more astounding given the fact that its major competitors have much larger enrollments. Last year Ohio State finished 2nd in the Learfield competition and ranked first in the nation in student enrollment at 63,016, of which 49,435 were undergraduates. By comparison, Stanford had 6,999 undergraduates (14% of the Buckeye total !).Surely the outstanding Cardinal athletic record is in part attributable to the independence of Stanford's athletic financing. But you also must have great admission "recruitment". Of the 6999 Stanford undergraduates, about 900 were student-athletes, a very high percentage.The much larger overall enrollment at large state universities is however not matched by a corresponding percentage of such students-athletes, already because NCAA regulations place limits on the financial aid and scholarships that can be offered.Ohio State, for example, has somewhat over 1000 student-athletes. In other words, in terms of the number of enrolled student-athletes, Stanford probably matches many much larger universities.We regularly post about Stanford University athletics because of the sometimes controversial rankings of U.S. colleges and universities published by mainstream media, which generally do not factor athletic programs or things like Silicon Valley into their equations. When those are added, it is difficult to beat Stanford.In fact, the many college applicants wishing to study at Stanford University have made Stanford The Toughest U.S. College to Get Into -- and that for good reason.Mens sana in corpore sano -- Latin for "a sound mind in a sound body".We must add, as a Stanford Law School graduate, that we are of course heavily biased, but we chose Stanford over many other superb law schools. Stanford University is simply unique."

Small wonder then, as reported in scandalous news reports in recent months, that some people are willing to pay millions to get their sons and daughters admitted to top-ranked colleges, such as Stanford.

Excellence and success have a price.

On that note, we take notice here that current German Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 30, 2019 received an honorary doctorate from Harvard University, a Doctor of Laws -- in advance of her keynote address at Harvard's 368th commencement ceremony.

People in America are impressed by her now already famous statement on mastering the migration crisis: (in German) "Wir schaffen das", translated into English "We can do it").

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Responsible for Blog Content: Verantwortlich für den Inhalt:(required by German Law):Andis KaulinsGartenstrasse 1056841 Traben-TrarbachGermanyContact: first and last name dot-separated at gmail dot com

Both volumes have the same cover except for the labels "Volume 1" viz. "Volume 2".The image on the cover was created using public domain space photos of Earth from NASA.

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Both book volumes contain the following basic book description:"Alice Cunningham Fletcher observed in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologistthat there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures in Native America,e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska, geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens.See Alice C. Fletcher, Star Cult Among the Pawnee--A Preliminary Report,American Anthropologist, 4, 730-736, 1902.Ralph N. Buckstaff wrote:"These Indians recognized the constellations as we do, also the important stars,drawing them according to their magnitude.The groups were placed with a great deal of thought and care and show long study. ... They were keen observers....The Pawnee Indians must have had a knowledge of astronomycomparable to that of the early white men."See Ralph N. Buckstaff, Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map,American Anthropologist, Vol. 29, Nr. 2, April-June 1927, pp. 279-285, 1927.In our book, we take these observations one level furtherand show that megalithic sites and petroglyphic rock carvingand pictographic rock art in Native America,together with mounds and earthworks, were made to represent territorial geographic landmarksplaced according to the stars of the sky using the ready map of the starry skyin the hermetic tradition, "as above, so below".That mirror image of the heavens on terrestrial land is the "Sky Earth" of Native America,whose "rock stars" are the real stars of the heavens,"immortalized" by rock art petroglyphs, pictographs,cave paintings, earthworks and mounds of various kinds (stone, earth, shells) on our Earth.These landmarks were placed systematicallyin North America, Central America (Meso-America) and South Americaand can to a large degree be reconstructed as the Sky Earth of Native America."